The Regional Secretary of the Small Scale Miners Association in Ashanti, Adu Gyamfi, has expressed confidence that President John Dramani Mahama will achieve a 70 per cent success rate in his efforts to combat illegal mining, although he acknowledges that more needs to be done to address the issue.

He commended the President for introducing new measures such as the Blue Water Guards and NAIMOS to tackle the problem.

While acknowledging the efforts made so far, Gyamfi emphasised the need for more realistic measures to effectively deal with the issue.

He noted that significant progress has been made in the president’s first year in office and urged the government to intensify its efforts to achieve its goals.

“President John Dramani Mahama is doing his best in the fight against galamsey, but there is more room for improvement. If I am to evaluate the performance of this government in the fight against galamsey and the small-scale sector, I will give it 70 per cent.

"What we have to do is deploy realistic measures in dealing with the crisis because if we continue to do things the same way, we will have no better results.”

He called on authorities to deal with police officers who are intimidating licensed small-scale miners.

He further called on the government to make the licensing regime flexible while enforcing the laws to deal with those engaged in irresponsible small-scale mining and commend those who work within the legal framework.

Additionally, Gyamfi supported the call for the involvement of traditional chiefs in the fight against illegal mining, citing their ownership of the land.

“We fully support the call for chiefs or traditional rulers to be included in the fight against galamsey. They are the custodians of the land, and so we cannot rule them out of the fight against galamsey.

"Sometimes we don’t include them in the decision-making process when it comes to issues of mining and so including them in the fight was a step in the right direction.”